Internet Explorer 10 is finally out  at least, for those who have picked up a copy of Windows 8, as the latest iteration of Microsoft's primary Web browser comes baked into the new operating system by default. Windows 7 stalwarts sticking to their "legacy" OS will have to wait until next month to get their hands on the browser update.

So, for a subset of Microsoft's users at least, it's a celebration! It's also been a celebration for Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, which just recently received a cake from Mozilla's Firefox development team in celebration of their big IE accomplishment.

To note: The surprise isn't that Mozilla sent Microsoft a cake, per se. It actually used to be a longstanding tradition between the two browser development teams. When Mozilla finished development on a major browser iteration and shipped it out to the public, the Microsoft Internet Explorer team would send along a congratulatory cake  with the (delicious) IE logo firmly planted on the top of the cake, of course.

The tradition changed a little bit when Mozilla upped the frequency of its major browser releases from one or two per year to more frequent, smaller updates on a six-week schedule. At that point, describes Firefox engineer Matt Brubeck, the Internet Explorer team switched to cupcakes instead of full-fledged cakes  lest Microsoft's employees turn all of Mozilla's employees diabetic, we presume.

That all said, it's cake time once again. Brubeck ordered up a cake for the Internet Explorer team (approximately two feet by two feet by five feet) and delivered it yesterday, where it took the developers all of 30 minutes to turn it from a tasty decoration into crumbs. They tweeted their thanks in response to the gesture, but couldn't help throwing in a little bit of a Windows 8 push as well:

"Thanks to @firefox for helping celebrate#IE10 launch w/ cake! We look forward to Firefox for #windows8 soon," reads a message on the official Internet Explorer Twitter account.

As you'll notice, the bottom-most border of the cake was damaged and rebuilt during transit. And, naturally, Microsoft engineers couldn't resist a bit of commentary about how the damage is a metaphor for today's browser standards.

"The funniest bit was the discussion of: 1. What CSS is required to create the cake border and 2. What display bugs do the imperfections in the border correspond to," said Microsoft engineer Rico Mariani in a Facebook comment.

" God help us," he added.

No Cake For You

It's fair to say that Microsoft isn't likely going to be sending any cakes over to Yahoo anytime soon, as Yahoo recently announced that it has no intention of following the "Do Not Track" technology enabled by default within Internet Explorer 10.

"In principle, we support 'Do Not Track' (DNT). Unfortunately, because discussions have not yet resulted in a final standard for how to implement DNT, the current DNT signal can easily be abused," reads a Friday post in Yahoo's Policy blog.

"Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users' direction. In our view, this degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver on our value proposition to them. It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn't express user intent."

The crux of Yahoo's argument  user choice  runs in lockstep with arguments previously expressed by advertising companies (and their member organizations) that also support ignoring Do Not Track in IE10. That includes the Digital Advertising Alliance, a self-regulating body for the online advertising industry, which recently said that it will not punish advertising companies that decide to ignore the feature on IE or any other browser that defaults to enabling Do Not Track.

"The trade associations that lead the DAA do not believe that Microsoft's IE10 browser settings are an appropriate standard for providing consumer choice. Machine-driven do not track does not represent user choice; it represents browser-manufacturer choice. Allowing browser manufacturers to determine the kinds of information users receive could negatively impact the vast consumer benefits and Internet experiences delivered by DAA participants and millions of other Web sites that consumers value," reads a press release by the DAA issued earlier this month.

According to Microsoft executives, a recent company survey found that 75 percent of users preferred that Microsoft enable Do Not Track as a default setting.

"This reaffirms our decision to enable DNT in the 'Express Settings' portion of the Windows 8 set-up experience. There, consumers can easily switch DNT off if they'd like. Transparency and choice guide our approach. We will continue to innovate and compete on privacy," said Microsoft's chief privacy officer, Brendon Lynch, in a statement.

David Murphy got his first real taste of technology journalism when he arrived at PC Magazine as an intern in 2005. A three-month gig turned to six months, six months turned to occasional freelance assignments, and he has since rejoined his tech-loving, mostly New York-based friends as one of PCMag.com's news contributors.
His rise to (self-described) fame in the world of tech journalism began during his stint as an associate editor at Maximum PC, where his love of cardboard-based PC construction and meetings put him in...
More »